Abby Rockefeller's sludge paper now on the Web (fwd)

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 22:07:20 -0800
From: Beth von Gunten <colibri@west.net>
Reply-To: organic-certification@listserv.oit.unc.edu
To: organic-certification@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Abby Rockefeller's sludge paper now on the Web
>Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 12:35:16 -0500
>Reply-To: "WASTENOT Organic Waste Collection, Processing, Composting,"
> <WASTENOT@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
>Sender: "WASTENOT Organic Waste Collection, Processing, Composting,"
> <WASTENOT@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
>From: Jon Campbell <jon@CQS.COM>
>Subject: Abby Rockefeller's sludge paper now on the Web
>To: WASTENOT@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>
>Hello All,
>
> Happy New Year to everyone.
>
> I just finiished a major facelift of my website, and on it you will
>find Abby Rockefeller's paper on the history of sewage and sludge. You can
>reach my website by pointing your browser at www.cqs.com, and to look at
>Abby's paper directly you can point to www.cqs.com/sewage.htm
>
> For those that don't know Abby: she is active with Clivus Multrum USA,
>the vendor of the most successful (and most sophisticated) composting
>toilets. In her paper, Abby carefully analyzes how human waste, which at
>various times in various countries, was returned to the land as fertilizer,
>has become mixed with industrial wastes through use of water-carriage
>toilets and connection to municipal sewage treatment plants. Once that
>connection has been made, Abby makes a powerful argument that re-use of the
>mixed material - concentrated as "sludge" - cannot be made safe because we
>cannot know what goes in.
>
>Tightly-bound organochlorines such as dichlorobenzene, trichloroethylene,
>and dioxin, radioactive waste from hospitals and clinics, lead, mercury, and
>cadmium from metal processors, all get flushed down the toilet along with
>the human excrement.
>
>We are compromising future generations, thinking we can be alchemists and
>make the ghastly mixture safe. In the end, the land will eventually become
>poisoned and unusable.
>
>The long-term answer is the refit of homes with retrofit composters, which
>cost about $1000 each, and the elimination of sewage treatment plants
>forever. Short-term we must push for separation of residential sewage from
>industrial, promote a massive education campaign regarding use of toilets,
>and compost residential sewage, with frequent testing, for non-agricultural
>use, setting heavy metal, radiation, and organochlorine standards at
>background levels.
>
>Cheers
>Jon
>